Lifeboat
by Reincarnated Poet
Summary: Clarke didn't need anyone to save her, not anymore. It was time she learned how to live on her own terms.


AN: The next little installment of the song-fics I'm sort of running through at this point. So far we've had Landslide, The Devil's Backbone and Side of a Bullet. I'm enjoying writing these more than I thought. This is a shorter piece, but you can look forward to a rather lengthy Bellarke fic in the next week. It's taken on a life of it's own as far as something that was supposed to be 5,000 words goes. Anyway, let me know what you think. I went a different way than I usually do with post season finale Clarke...and I kinda like it.

Lifeboat

Clarke settled down on the edge of her campfire, pleased with the warmth that it provided in the hours just after twilight. There were things that she'd never done since coming down to Earth, things like starting a campfire. In the first few days after she'd walked away from Camp Jaha, those had been the hardest things, the little things.

She could set a snare. She could keep herself healthy. She could fish.

She couldn't start a fire or weave a blanket. She couldn't skin game, and every time she tried to build more of a shelter than a basic lean-to, she ended up buried in it halfway through the night. That had been three months ago, and now...well.

She glanced over her shoulder at the hut she'd built a month ago. She'd spent the better part of three days watching a grounder village until she was able to try and recreate their structures. It hadn't been perfect, and it was still a little small, but it kept her dry, and with each passing day, she was able to thicken the walls and add on a few inches at a time. Now she had enough room to lay down in any direction, and soon, she might be able to light the campfire inside without fear of burning herself or her home.

The fish she had skewered over the fire was starting to smell done, and she picked at it with a bit of metal she'd salvaged off of the wreckage of one of the Arc station pods. It was only two pronged, but it made a great fork. With her dinner nigh and the chill of night chased away by her fire, she stared up at the sky, enjoying the stars.

She wished she could say she missed the camp, all those of the 100 and their drama, but if she were honest, she wasn't. She spent her days doing whatever she wanted, learning the land and new ways to go about hunting or gathering game. She glanced back over toward her little shelter. Inside, there was a pile of furs, all small and tattered, but she'd earned them. She'd hunted that game. She'd skinned it and ate it and used every bit of it she could because at the time she hadn't known if she'd find more.

So no, she didn't miss camp. Sometimes she missed Jasper and Monty's banter or Octavia's smiles or Bellamy's hard earned trust. But those things were of the before, and Clarke was living in the now. Jasper and Monty hadn't been speaking when she left. Octavia hadn't smiled in days, let alone at Clarke. Bellamy had forgiven her, but he didn't trust her, not really. He'd not followed her. He'd not trusted her to lead him somewhere else. Which was unfair, but it was how it sat in her heart.

"Roots tomorrow," she said aloud, just to hear the sound of a voice. "Roots and seaweed and maybe work on some baskets." She glared over at the drying grasses and vines she'd been trying to turn into baskets with little success.

"Those baskets aren't going to hold." Lincoln never startled her anymore. He stopped by when he liked, and most of the time, he stared disapprovingly at something she'd done. For the last three days, it had been the baskets.

"They will eventually," she said, picking another piece of flesh away from the fish before offering it over to him. He frowned at it but took a piece before passing it back.

"You're using the wrong grass," he said finally before turning to the pack he carried. From inside, he pulled several small metal containers, crudely made and hammered thin. He offered them out to her, and she only shook her head.

"I'll figure it out myself, Lincoln," she said.

It had been the same thing she'd told him when he offered her a lighter. _A gift from Marcus Kane. Your mother worries, and so he tries to make it better._

The same as when he'd brought a grounder made coat lined with pelts on the inside and leather on the out. _Lexa asked me to find you. An apology for her betrayal. News has reached TonDC that you aren't with the Sky People. She worries._

Not too different from when he'd pulled a walkie-talkie from his pack. _Abby asked me to bring it, in case you needed them._

"You never take the things they send you," he said softly, putting it back in his pack.

"I don't need them. I'm learning." And it was true. She was living far more comfortably than she'd thought she would that first week, that first month.

"They're trying to help."

"I appreciate it, but I'm learning how to live out here, Lincoln. On my own, and for the first time in a long time, I don't hate who I am." It was enough to make him fall silent, and when he left, he didn't come back for nearly a week.

"You were right about the type of grass," she told him as he settled down across from her by the fire. His sharp eyes fell on the two small baskets that sat by her little hut, rudimentary and crude but functional.

"You didn't need what they asked me to bring you," he agreed. She waited a long time that night for his disapproving stare to fall on something else, something new she would have to work on. That was how she'd gone about the last three months. As soon as she thought she'd been fine, his eye would catch on something with disdain or he'd make a comment about something she needed.

As the night went on and he said little more than that there was a storm on the horizon, she realized for the first time that she was living alone, comfortably, successfully.

"I don't need them to rescue me," she said softly, knowing he would hear her. When he didn't disagree, she smiled, pulled her things away from the fire, and settled back into her shelter. He would stay a few hours and disappear, as he always did, but she kept her head by the door, inviting him to speak if he wanted. It was a comfortable silence, one that filled her with pride more than any words she'd ever been told. She fell asleep that night still halfway in the door of her little home, pleased with the sky above her and the warmth of the fire.

It was three weeks before she saw Lincoln again, and the absence made her question why he'd been coming by her little home in the first place. Octavia wouldn't ask him to check up on her, and he wouldn't have disappeared for so long if he'd been doing anything but. He did throw her, when he came through the tree line toward the little creek where she got her water.

"You're alright?" he asked, barely a yard away. She smiled at him, her little string of water skins hanging over her shoulder, full and dripping.

"Why wouldn't I be?" His eyes cut away from her, back through the trees and over her once again.

"There was a skirmish between two of the tribes...it wasn't safe to come check on you."

"I know. I saw," she said simply. "They left me alone." The silence that followed was uncomfortable. "Lexa told them to leave me alone." The realization was burning, nagging and angry.

"The Commander might have told them that Klark kom Skaikru was not to be touched. You're the reason they're free, Clarke."

"You tell Lexa that I don't need her protection," Clarke hissed, stalking forward and jabbing him in the shoulder with a pointed finger.

"You have no means to protect yourself," Lincoln argued. He shifted uncomfortably under her anger before pulling a dull black thing from a small pouch at his hip. A gun, she realized. Small and compact, similar to the guards' pistols. She stared at it for a long moment, there and so very innocent in his hand. Like one had been in her own in Mt. Weather, before she'd set it to task.

"I don't need that," she said quietly, turning back toward the creek. She bent forward, emptying and refilling a skin just to have something to do. "I didn't need anything else, and I don't need that. They don't have to save me, Lincoln. I don't need it."

"He told me you'd say that." The tone was terse but amused, and it jarred her to her core. She hadn't heard that voice since she'd left and he'd said her own words back at her.

 _May we meet again._

She straightened, letting the rope of water skins slide from her shoulder to the ground. Bellamy Blake looked good, all things considered. His wounds had healed, though Clarke could make out the faint traces of old wounds threatening to scar on the side of his face.

"Bellamy," she said, the name falling from her lips easily.

"Missed you, princess," he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"I missed you too," she admitted, and let herself cross the handful of yards between them to stand in front of him, Lincoln off a few paces.

"Take the gun, princess," he said, staring down at her with that look that said he was trying to be commanding. Clarke had always liked it, the draw of his eyebrows and the creasing of the forehead. He looked in control like that, but she knew that just as easily it could disappear and he could be Bellamy Blake on Unity Day.

"I don't need your help-"

"So I can sleep at night, Clarke." He reached out and took the gun from Lincoln. Gripping her wrist tight, he pressed it to her palm. "Please, so I know you're alright."

She stared down at it, cool in her hand and heavy. So very heavy. The weight of all the possibilities in the chamber.

"I don't want it," she said simply, but she didn't move to give it back. She tested its weight in her hand before glancing up at him. A hopeful little look had taken over the stern set of his eyes, and she sighed. "If it will help you sleep." The smile that bloomed there was worth taking the gun, and she went to slip it into the small pack she'd taken to wearing everywhere

"No," he said, stealing it from her hands and taking a length of leather from Lincoln. A belt, she realized, a moment later, one that while well worn was clearly of Ark make. He slid a small leather holster onto it before wrapping it around her waist and pulling her close enough to do the buckle tightly. "There."

"I don't need anyone to help me, Bellamy," she said after, as the silence stretched on and neither of them pulled away. She was close enough to see the humor flood his eyes and the little muscle at the corner of his jaw jump.

"I know, princess," he said before stepping back. "You're helping me."

"Helping me sleep," he agreed. "If I leave now, are you going to disappear again?" She considered the question, the meaning behind it.

"No," she said, and it took her saying it to know that it was true. "If you want to come keep me company sometime, Bellamy, you're welcome. If you think I need saving..."

"You don't," he said, taking a few steps back and nodding to Lincoln, who disappeared into the forest. "You're learning how to live. May we meet again, princess."

She waited until he was gone to echo his words back to him.


End file.
